The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) monitors trends in staple food supply and price trends in countries at risk of food insecurity. The Regional Supply and Market Outlook report provides a summary of regional staple food availability, surpluses and deficits during the current marketing year, projected price behavior, implications for local and regional commodity procurement, and essential market monitoring indicators. FEWS NET gratefully acknowledges partner organizations, national ministries of agriculture, national market information systems, regional organizations, and others for their assistance in providing the harvest estimates, commodity balance sheets, as well as trade and price data used in this report. To learn more about typical market conditions in Southern Africa, readers are invited to explore the Southern Africa regional maize market fundamentals report.

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The performance of the 2015/16 rainy season was among the worst in 30 years for many countries in Southern Africa. This was the second consecutive season of below average maize production. Already thin market supplies and high prices are expected to persist, with implications for current and projected food availability and food access.

Every country in the region is expected to have a deficit during the 2016/17 marketing year (MY), except Zambia and Tanzania. South Africa, the main regional maize exporter, will have a deficit , while Zambia, which played an important role during the 2015/16 marketing year has limited volumes of exportable surpluses. Tanzania is expected to export the majority of its maize surpluses to neighboring countries in East Africa. As regional maize production is not adequate to meet requirements, large and atypical supply gaps are anticipated.

Prices are expected to increase atypically as the lean season approaches and be more variable than usual, due to atypically thin markets region-wide. Maize prices are expected to remain well above average throughout the 2016/17 marketing year.

Market monitoring should focus on the volumes and distribution of international imports, government interventions, and food assistance programming and maize prices. Export parity prices and export volumes from South Africa and Zambia should also be monitored closely.

Opportunities for local and regional procurement of maize for in-kind assistance programs are limited. The design of cash and voucher programs should take into consideration the very thin markets and resulting high and variable prices anticipated over the remainder of the 2016/17 marketing year.